Harrabin Panics Over Oregon Heatwave–( It’s Weather, Roger!)
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Roger Harrabin seems to be getting worked about a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest!
https://twitter.com/rharrabin/status/1409379747008765953?s=21
Portland International Airport, for instance, set a record of 108F on Saturday:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/27/us/northwest-heatwave-record-high-temperatures/index.html
However that was only 1F higher than the previous record set in 1965, hardly apocalyptic!
Neither is there any evidence that such extremes of temperature are increasing:
http://climod2.nrcc.cornell.edu/
The temperature station at Portland is bang next to the tarmac, which would certainly add at least one degree to the temperature, which Harrabin totally fails to mention:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/#ncdcstnid=20016428&tab=LOCATIONS
Meanwhile the all time record for Oregon was set in 1898!
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/records/or
The BBC also reports on the heatwave, but quite disgracefully hints that deaths from extreme weather could rise because of climate change, when the actual data shows the opposite:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57626173
As for Harrabin, it is his usual scare tactic – pick an extreme weather event somewhere in the world, and claim it is due to global warming.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
What about the heat given off from the burning shops and cars….? ‘Ant eater’ not worried about climate change, ha ha.
Perhaps Harrabin forgot that 18 hours previously, he’d retweeted a tweet which gave a more-complete picture, pointing out:
He misleads by omission.
Lying by omission
Which exactly shows why these records in relatively small areas have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. It is simply uneven distribution of atmospheric heat. Given the effectively infinite possible patterns of distribution when you look at small areas, it is no surprise that there are records every year.
Siberia’s turn next. BBC deserves another derisory complaint setting out the temps. for 1965 and 1898. However note that the latest figures are for June and, so far as I can tell, not July or August.
LOL. Maybe you can give him a lecture on internal climate variability.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/
As this is a very short-lived heat wave (really only Saturday and Sunday and over today with huge temperature falls predicted (see Cliff Mass weather blog and WUWT), I decided to look up the Met Office’s definition of a heat wave. There’s plenty of waffle indicating that this US weather event just about qualifies but you quickly arrive at the following section:
Are heatwaves linked to climate change?
“Summer 2018 was the equal-second warmest summer in a UK series from 1884 for mean maximum temperature (shared with 1995) with summer 1976 hottest.
Heatwaves are extreme weather events, but research shows that climate change is making these events more likely. A scientific study by the Met Office into the Summer 2018 heatwave in the UK showed that the likelihood of the UK experiencing a summer as hot or hotter than 2018 is a little over 1 in 10. It is 30 times more likely to occur now than before the industrial revolution because of the higher concentration of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere. As greenhouse gas concentrations increase heatwaves of similar intensity are projected to become even more frequent, perhaps occurring as regularly as every other year by the 2050s. The Earth’s surface temperature has risen by 1 °C since the pre-industrial period (1850-1900) and UK temperatures have risen by a similar amount.”
Of course, no evidence is presented for all this. I’m sorry but, even by the standards of the Met Office, this is outrageous. It’s simply scientifically illiterate hysteria. The Met Office is a publicly funded scientific body. It has a duty to inform rationally, not stoop to issuing this kind of wild, speculative garbage with not a hint that what they are spouting forth is purely modelled outcomes with huge uncertainties creating every possibility that what they are, in effect, forecasting (I don’t care how they spin it) will not happen at all.
I was looking at an old presentation I made a few years ago and saw that I had listed the warmest,
sorry, catastrophically hot months from the CET. I must have got it wrong (but then I didn’t get my data from the BBC).
Jan 1916
Feb 1779
Mar 1957
Apr 2011
May 1833
Jun 1846
Jul 2006
Aug 1995
Sep 2006
Oct 2001
Nov 1994
Dec 2015
If you aggregate into the Summer season then the warmest was 1846, followed by 1976, then (possibly ) 2018, although both 1734 and 1737 might be in the running for third place.
Unfortunately I didn’t have access to the BBC figures for the scariest recent weather.
I am sceptical about much of the data published by the BBC and the Met Office but your table does seem to indicate that, in the UK, seven months out of twelve have experienced their record high (average?) temperatures since 1990.
I presume the UHI effect could explain some of this but does seven out of twelve seem, sorry, extreme?
The seasonal and individual months are ranked here:-
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/ssn_HadCET_mean_sort.txt
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt
Jinks:
The CET is supposed to be the pristine most scientifically rigorous record, however there is a UHI adjustment these days so it’s no longer as good as it was – and arguably the adjustment is now too small.
That said, the earth has been naturally warming for hundreds of years long before supposed AGW, so you would expect recent years to have the warmest rankings. Obviously the warming is not exactly linear, there are other cycles imposed on top.
In the 1930/40s a similar situation existed where all the most recent years peppered the hot end of the scale – before supposed AGW.
Marmaduke, 7 out of twelve tells you nothing. And why pick since 1990? The only people disputing that the UK had a Littke Ice Age and the climate has been changing since then are the Alarmists. We have warmed in phases since the LIA. Just as we have cooled and warmed in phases for 150,000 years in the UK as things like the fossil record show. And phases such as the Eemian were warmer than now. Climate changes naturally over extremely wide ranges.
” really only Saturday and Sunday and over today with huge temperature falls predicted ”
I wonder if Harrabin will make a fuss over the rapid cooling?
I also wonder if he knows about summer?
The Pacific North West (Washington state and Oregon) are thought to be the ‘rainy north west’, but that is only partly true. Seattle, in particular is one of the cloudiest and rainiest parts of the US and that part of the Pacific North West does have a temperate, rainy climate not dissimilar from northern France. However, what many – including Americans – don’t realise is the impact of the Cascade Range of mountains. East of the Cascades both Oregon and Washington states have semi- arid or even arid climates. If you drive the interstate east from Seattle and cross through the mountain range you can see the change. In places like Walla Walla and Yakima summers are hot and dry. If Seattle is like Rouen or Paris, the interior is like North Africa. In summer inland temperatures average 30-32C every day, compared to the low 20s in Seattle. Temperatures exceed 40c on the very hottest days each summer and 46c has been recorded at Walla Walla. What is unique this year – and it’s the weather equivalent of throwing several sixes on a dice in a row – is that this interior, ‘desert’ air has crossed west across the Cascades. A very unusual pressure pattern has seen a huge and deep ridge of high pressure inland, with a low just offshore. This pattern is also deep, through all the layers of the atmosphere. At all the monitored levels a SE air flow has been drawn from inland Washington and Oregon and pulled west across the Cascades. This has also been amplified by a foehn effect, as the air dries and warms further as it descends. Seattle and Portland and other cities as a result are clearly seeing once in a century or more high temperatures today, but this reflects a highly unusual air flow , just as likely to be the random flow of the winds as any ‘climate change’
Thank you for that information and explanation Chris. I wondered if there was a Foehn effect in play, given the geography.
LeedsChris,
A very comprehensive assessment and a balanced summary.
As far as I can tell the meteorologists all agree that this is a weather event with down
slope temperatures enhanced by a Foehn wind effect. There are various types of Foehn wind, this one is probably an Isentropic draw-down associated with the blocking of lower level air over the high plains by the Rocky Mountains to the east of Cascadia.
In any event there is a clear link between the low temperature anomalies to the east of the Rockies and the high temperature anomalies to the west. Radiative “heat blocking” climate theory cannot explain this as radiative theory requires a unidirectional increase in temperature under all circumstances (otherwise there is no global warming).
Traditional meteorology by contrast with its emphasis on air mass movement and adiabatic heating by forced air descent fully accounts for this natural weather process.
The weather dice has an unknown number of sides and the numbers on each side are unknown. That’s why “attribution studies” using probabilities are garbage. Maybe the dice for Seattle has 100 sides and one of the numbers is 44 degrees.
Told you days ago BBC/Harrabin would jump on it. Hold on to your pants, that Oregon temp. will last a day and get smashed.
It’s random weather – a ‘perfect storm’. There is nothing changed about the temperature/state of the climate that has caused it. The most recent WUWT update.
Heller also has some historic context on his site. These random things happen from time to time.
God reckoning with Sodom on the Willamette.
It was pretty hot over the weekend in neighbouring Washington state but that didn’t affect the racing at the Ridge Motorsports Park round of MotoAmerica. The track didn’t melt and the tyres lasted for the 16 lap Supersport and Superbike races on both days.
“Experts say ………..”
When I read the word “expert” I rech for my custard pie.
There’s a typo here – not sure if it’s a “t” or an “a” missing. They certainly make me sock.
or even sick!
Why doesnt he mention the ‘Coldwave’ in Colorado, New Mexico? Huge cold area in central USA.
With the jetstream now following a meridonal flow, blips of hot then cold are standard.
HH Lamb covered it all and his observations still hold true.
108f on the tarmac at Portland Airport huh? That’s nothing, it was 125.6f on the tarmac at the start of the Austrian Grand Prix in the Alps yesterday. Isn’t UHI wonderful? I wonder how much more concrete, glass, vehicles, flights, exhaust and air con emissions there are today in comparison to 1965 at that site? And I’m sure all the site changes have been taken into account before the data is chucked through the ‘hotter than evah’ temperature mangle.
This is par for the course from the BBC; How strange these global warming phenomena are that they always manage to create record temperatures in the UK only at either Heathrow airport of the botanical gardens at Kew whilst nowhere else registers anywhere near this.
I do wonder how the BBC presenters manage to keep a straight face when reading this nonsensical information.
I do wonder how the BBC…..propagandists manage to keep their jobs seeing how they are so very bad at them. But if course, being a good propagandist is their job and if they were bad at that they would be quickly replaced by someone more keen to lie for their country.
No doubt they will balance it tomorrow with news of the huge (expected) fall in temperatures at the same locations.
“Largest day-to-day drop in temperature in history! Is a NEW ICE AGE beginning ?!?! Here from the experts at 11.”
With respect to the state of Oregon (and Washington), it is difficult to use the NOAA “Climate at a Glance” database because they have systematically and seasonally adjusted all of the monthly temperatures downwards from those officially reported by the US Weather Bureau. Having made and kept screen captures of their temperature maps, there were 10 contiguous states in the West and Northwest that were record warm in 1934. None of them is now a record warm year. The same is true for 1921 although the states were different, of course.
I was in St Louis in the 1970s and I remember the pavements burnings the soles of my shoes
The Beebs own programme about the Jet Stream (JS) stated that the variations in its pattern could cause anomalies. It’s weather, and we in Britain get more than our fair share of it; the dumping grounds for the JS (and not to mention the BS).
Only to add that man made structures are phenomenal heat sinks and Britain is building its way towards higher temperatures. Oregon, population 4,237,256, Britain, about the same land area, population, 68,237,070!
Note how cold relatively virtually the entirety of the rest of the United States is. No comments on that of course.
dont see how i can insert a picture.
Anyway Bob sums it up
See 1850: https://realclimatescience.com/2021/06/experts-say-climate-change-could-be-to-blame/
OMG!!! Heatstorms!! Does that mean it rains heat or is that an oxymoron?
or even sick!
I was waiting to see who would be the first one to claim global warming was the cause of the “record setting” heat. I was not disappointed. It is not the first time, and the records are not really being blown up.
Made 112F on Monday.
Cool visualization of temps. since 1938. Interesting that there are some runs of black temps (100+) early in the record, July 1941 looks like the longest 100+ heatwave.
https://projects.oregonlive.com/weather/temps/
It It is NOAA data and an airport – so buyer beware. Although 2010s looks like the hottest decade, 1970-2000s hardly warms at all (arbitrary 10 year groups are not a good way to view trends though).
Technically it’s due to solar activity. Or to be precise: inactivity.
there’s currently a great big jet stream loop up over California sucking in hot air from Mexican desert.
We’re in the solar minimum, where these jet stream patterns happen often: alternate patches of hot and cold due to big jet stream loops, with blocking events occurring to keep them in place for extended periods.
The Great Moscow Heatwave of 2010 was a pattern like this and the sat pic white out of the UK that winter was another. Both due to the solar minimum, as Mike Lockwood explained.